Wood on Words: A grand and gritty look at rock-inspired terms

Friday

Aug 21, 2009 at 12:01 AMAug 21, 2009 at 9:15 PM

As I dug into earth terms for this series of columns, I was struck by how many begin with “gr-.” Last week I wrote about “gravel” and “grit,” and on July 12 about “ground” — and I’ve only scratched the surface.

Barry Wood

As I dug into earth terms for this series of columns, I was struck by how many begin with “gr-.” Last week I wrote about “gravel” and “grit,” and on July 12 about “ground” — and I’ve only scratched the surface.

The main building block of the continents is “granite,” an igneous rock that forms beneath the Earth’s surface. It comes in a variety of colors, but it’s always relatively coarse-grained.
In fact, the word “granite” comes from the Italian “granito,” literally, “grained,” and traces back to the Latin for “grain” or “a seed,” “granum.”

Other “gr-” rock names include “greisen,” another igneous rock “consisting mainly of quartz and white mica”; “graphite,” a soft mineral of pure carbon found in metamorphic rocks; and the sedimentary “graywacke,” either a type of dark sandstone or a conglomerate resembling sandstone.

In geology, a conglomerate is a hodgepodge of pieces of different kinds of rock held together by clay or some other natural cement. In business, it’s “a large corporation formed by the merger or acquisition of a number of companies in unrelated, widely diversified industries.”

In other words, both are the products of destruction and reconstitution.

The term “graben,” from the German for “a ditch,” is applied to a long, narrow area between two faults that has subsided (or sunk). A corresponding raised area is known as a “horst” (originally “a thicket” in German).

And there’s another list that could be made of rock names and other terms for significant chunks of real estate that begin with the “gr-” words “great,” “grand” and “green,” including the Great Basin, the Grand Canyon and the Green Mountains.

Working or playing in the dirt can leave you “grimy,” “grubby” and the slang “grungy.”

Digging in the dirt also can produce a “grave.” This word for a burial site comes from the Old English base of “grafan” — appropriately, “to dig.”

Another “grave” is the one that means “serious,” “important,” “grievous” and so on. It comes from the Latin “gravis,” for “heavy, weighty.”

It’s the source for another Earth word, “gravity.” It’s what we call the “force that tends to draw all bodies in the Earth’s sphere toward the center of the Earth.”

That’s what keeps everything on the surface of the planet from flying off into space — which might be the ultimate thrill ride, but the fun would be over in an instant.

What about grits?

After reading last week’s column, my wife asked whether “grit” and “grits” are related.
They are thought to have the same Indo-European base (“ghreu-”) that meant “to rub hard over, crumble.” In general, “grits” are (or you can say “grits is”) “corn or other grain, soybeans, etc., ground more coarsely than for flour or meal.”

In this country, the term is usually associated with a Southern dish made of coarsely ground hominy.

Also from the same Indo-European root are “groats,” which are “hulled, or hulled and coarsely cracked grain, especially wheat, buckwheat, oats or barley.”

Akin to groats is the Germanic “grut,” which was the source for “gruel,” a thin porridge.
In old British usage, “gruel” also was informal for “punishment,” which is where “grueling” for “extremely trying; exhausting” came from.

Finally, the base that led to “grits” also is at the root of “gruesome.”